MEDIA

MEDIA

Stranger things have probably happened in steam baths. But who would have thought that a chance meeting at the Oak Leaf Steam Room on Bathurst Street would lead to a Canadian benefit album for native-American political prisoner Leonard Peltier? And by one half of Blue Rodeo's singing-songwriting team, no less.

"I met Frank Dreaver of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee," says Greg Keelor, on the phone from Quebec's Morin Heights Studio. "We were just sitting there sweating, and we just started talking, and he told me what he did, and it just hit me in a way that I wanted to do something."

It's not as if Keelor didn't already have a lot on his plate. At the time, he was about to hit the road with Blue Rodeo and then begin work on a solo album with Sarah McLachlan's long-time producer Pierre Marchand. The album, inspired by Keelor's trip to India earlier this year and due out in January, not only has Marchand on bass but also features McLachlan on piano. Keelor describes it as a "pared down" record and says he may do a quickie tour of major Canadian cities next year to support it.

Despite his schedule, Keelor, who'd been reading the Peltier-inspired In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse, was moved enough to phone the likes of McLachlan, The Tragically Hip, Ashley MacIsaac, and his Blue Rodeo writing partner, Jim Cuddy, to ask them to contribute to an album benefiting the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

"It wasn't that hard - 'cause I have everyone's phone number," says Keelor. "I didn't have to go through the management. I just sort of called them up and it was quite a blessing 'cause the first day that I phoned, I would say half the people were in. They said, `Yeah, I'd love to.' You know everyone that I've talked to about this thing has been quite excited to do it and quite happy to do it. And so that aspect of it has been easy. "I just said, `Record the song and send the bill to WEA'." The hard part? "Publicity, but that's just me." For those who don't know, Peltier was extradited from Canada and found guilty in the 1975 murders of two F.B.I. agents at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He's spent 21 years behind bars, despite it having been proven the affidavit that led to his extradition was false.

Now just eight months after Keelor met Dreaver, Pine Ridge - An Open Letter To Alan Rock - Songs For Leonard Peltier, hits record stores on Wednesday. "This case has been on the justice minister's agenda for about two years and he hasn't done anything about it, saying that he would. But each new headline is something for him to contend with," says Keelor. "So hopefully this will raise it on the agenda ." Sadly, Keelor has yet to meet or even talk to Peltier, but he's hoping that will happen one day. "Frank and I were going to go down and visit him one time and the day that we were leaving they phoned and said our visit had been denied because we didn't have the proper paperwork. "Frank was telling me that they often use this sort of things to sort of mind-f--k him because he's such a high-profile political prisoner."